The Sewing Mom

Now that my sites are on the latest and greatest platform and are all shiny and updated, I’ve decided it’s time to start searching for a new design, particularly for this blog.

I’m hoping to find something that reflects my interest in sewing and I love the 3 column design.  If anyone has seen anything or knows a good place for me to go looking, let me know!

I have to send a HUGE shout out to Mrs. Mecomber of Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook. I have 2 blogs and both were in desperate need of having their Wordpress platform updated. I have attempted on a couple of occasions to accomplish this task on my own and it never fails, something in my blog breaks. It’s frustrating and pretty much makes me feel incompetent.

So, while dropping EC’s the other day, I happened to notice a blogging friend of mine talking about the latest update and the reasons why Wordpress needed to update, yet again. I decided to ask my lovely friend if she would be willing to update my blogs for me and, I shouldn’t have been surprised, she said yes! Her only request of me was to install the Automatic Wordpress Update plugin, which I then had my sister Karen do for me because I knew she could complete that task way faster than me!

Next thing I knew, both of my blogs were running on the most updated Wordpress, 2.8.3 and were finally up to date!

Rebecca, YOU ROCK!

This post was sponsored by Sears. All the opinions are mine.

Today was my day off, so after taking my daughter to a scheduled doctor’s appointment this morning, we headed off to the mall for some back to school clothes shopping. Thankfully, she had spent the last several days online doing some window shopping and scoping out exactly where she wanted to go. This saved us a whole bunch of time and allowed us extra time to go shopping for new bedding for her room.

We went through several of the department stores at the mall, and I loved hitting them at this time of year because they have whole bedding and study room departments set up geared to the teens and those going off to college. Truth is, I’ve been online doing some window shopping myself and one of my favorite sites is Sears.com with its CampusReady section. I particularly enjoy looking at the Dorm Rooms because they show different design ideas to coordinate a bedroom and make great use of space by including a study space. The colors are teen friendly and I love all the simple items that are shown to help a student stay organized. The site also has a shopping checklist to make sure nothing gets forgotten before heading off to school. As a parent, I have to admit, I really appreciate the Sears has even thought to include a segment on financial tips and budgeting advice. I really like that they’ve thought of even the little things like the cost of a haircut or even something as small as a postage stamp.

Sears is doing everything it can to stay up to date with the trends and has even created the application CampusReady on Facebook. Plus, with college tuition continuing to become more and more expensive, you can enter for your chance to win money toward your child’s college tuition from Sears and Upromise! A total of $25,000 will be awarded. Upromise members are automatically entered with a sears.com purchase through Upromise.com, or enter free at sears.com/campusready. See sears.com/campusready for full rules and complete details. Visit CampusReady to enter.

My sister Karen, at Winding Threads has been creating bags like crazy lately, and this is her latest creation. It’s a slouchy bag with plenty of interior room for those who love having everything with them when they’re on the go. My daughter is considering having her make one that she can use this fall for carrying her book and binders to/from school. Personally, I love the fabric this one is made out of, isn’t it pretty?

I had the most pleasant meeting yesterday with a fellow blogger, someone who’s blog and independent business entrepreneurship I’ve admired for some time now. We’ve shared comments and emails back & forth for a number of months, but our timing never allowed us to get together in real life, even though we had come to realized that we only lived about 5 miles from each other. That all changed yesterday.

Hilary from Designing Hilary decided she need to clean out a closet and that meant somehow getting rid of stacks and stacks of fabric she had accumulated over time. She knew I was a fabricaholic and invited me to have a look to see what I might want.

I have to tell you that Hilary is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. We talked for well over an hour, and even learned that besides having a common interest in creating hand made items, we also have girls about the same age which of course, gave us even more to talk about. It really was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon, and, to top it all off, I got to go through all of her fabric!

I wish I’d had my camera with me, I bought quite a bit from her, but felt like I didn’t make a dent in what was covering her dining room table, all sorted nicely in bins and organized by color! I felt like I’d hit the jackpot and I’m sure I couldn’t hide my excitement. While I didn’t get a photo of Hilary’s entire stash, nor a photo of the 2 of us, I did take a picture of all the fabric I brought home.

Some of the floral prints I’ll be giving to my mom to use, but I do have plans all ready for all of the fat 1/4’s and many of the other pieces. I took it all into my sewing room today and organized it and can’t wait to get started. Maybe this was what I needed to get re-inspired in the sewing arena!